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Lesson #2: “I've learned that it doesn't matter what you do, if you learn to sell, you will never starve.”

Article Overview: Not only did Foreman learn how to market himself and influence how people viewed him outside of the boxing ring, but so too did he develop expert salesmanship skills. Over time, Foreman would become an advertiser’s dream come true thanks to his ability to sell anything from food to appliances to cleaning products.

Lesson #2: “I've learned that it doesn't matter what you do, if you learn to sell, you will never starve.”

Not only did Foreman learn how to market himself and influence how people viewed him outside of the boxing ring, but so too did he develop expert salesmanship skills. Over time, Foreman would become an advertiser's dream come true thanks to his ability to sell anything from food to appliances to cleaning products. "In time I learned the importance of selling," he says. After winning the heavyweight title again in 1994, at the record-breaking age of 44 years old, Foreman says advertiser's started looking at him differently. "That's when people started to say, ‘This guy can sell himself,'" he recalls. "‘Let's let him sell Doritos or Kentucky Fried or McDonald's.'" And Foreman went to work doing just that, selling products as if each one were his life's passion.

"If you learn to sell, it's worth more than a degree," says Foreman. "It's worth more than the heavyweight championship of the world. It's even more important than having a million dollars in the bank. Learn to sell and you'll never starve."

Foreman proved to be as relentless a salesman as he was in the boxing ring. He won the Olympic Gold medal after only 24 amateur fights, and after turning professional, won 37 straight wins - mostly by knockout - with no losses.

As a salesman, Foreman accepted no losses. "I love selling," he once proclaimed, and it showed. He had gained that love and the confidence he needed to sell during his time spent preaching on the streets of Houston.

"It started because I left boxing in 1977 and worked in evangelism at a church in Marshall," he recalls. "I was preaching on the street corner and I'd make people stop. They didn't know me, the old George with an afro and all that. So I realized I could stop these people, who are always headed somewhere, for a second and sell my message. That's what I learned to do on the street corner."

Foreman might have gained his expert salesmanship skills on the streets of Texas, preaching to the homeless and busy passer byes, but that was exactly the audience he needed to gain the confidence to take his messages further. He spent countless nights out on the streets. Whether it was raining, snowing, or 35 degrees Celsius outside, Foreman could not be brought back inside. He was committed to his cause, and refused to accept anything less than success.

In time, Foreman took himself off the streets of Texas and began selling his message to boardrooms and audiences around America. The messages were vastly different - from spiritual enlightenment to the health benefits of cooking with a George Foreman Grill - but the skills he used were the same. And, while he might no longer have been interacting face-to-face with his customers, Foreman managed to retain his personal, down to earth and familiar charm that helped sell so many of his products.

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Article Tags: advertiser, appliances, boxing ring, cleaning products, heavyweight title, lesson 2, salesmanship, true thanks



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